even if he walks a path paved with blood
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Sasuke breaks himself to become"stronger". (Note: Itachi and Sasuke pairing)


**Fandom: Naruto  
Title: even if he walks a path paved with blood.  
Rating: pg  
Pairing: Itachi + Sasuke  
Description: ****Sasuke breaks himself to become****"****stronger****"****. ****(Note: Itachi and Sasuke pairing)**

**Disclaimer - Naruto doesn****'****t belong to me.**

I waited for you.

Even though I was much shorter than you, I stood outside the gate while waiting for your class to finish. While the rain poured and I began to sneeze because it was so cold, I shook there with my umbrella rattling.

When you came out, you raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Immediately, you took the umbrella with your left hand and picked me up with my weight resting on your right arm.

As we walked home, I started to cry onto your shoulder.

"What is wrong, Sasuke?"

You poked me and I winced slightly as we met face to face. My tear-strained visage was before your eyes. You tipped your head to one side and tenderly looked at me, full of reserved concern.

"What…what does it mean to be strong, Aniki?"

I didn't like crying, but I knew I could do it in front of you. You were the only one who let me do as I pleased. You were the only one who asked me if I was all right or if I needed anything.

No one else ever did.

Your eyes slightly closed almost cat-like. Softly, you began to chuckle.

"Everyone tells me I have to be like you." I turned my head away. "But I'm not you. I'm only me."  
I began to cry harder as I rubbed my eyes together, ashamed of the tears that incessantly came out of me.

You stopped walking as we touched forehead to forehead. Then, you closed your eyes.

"But in order to be strong…I want to be like you. But what does it mean to be strong, Aniki?" I asked again.  
I now held onto your clothing as the rain poured relentlessly around us, washing away every noise and  
person in our path.

You just held me and the wind blew and violently shook the leaves off the trees.

When I thought you wouldn't answer me at all, you opened your eyes and said one thing that I would never forget. Then, like always, you didn't say anything more, quietly warring with yourself,

as always.

**even if he walks a path paved with blood****.****  
By miyamoto yui  
**  
They tell you to fight. They say that you've got to keep on going because there's something to protect.

But where I am?

In my mind, as I pivot myself in a circling motion around this dark abyss, I see everything within my reach. And yet, there isn't really anything in sight.  
I grab onto my eyes and I want to rip them out. I don't acknowledge the tears that are falling down in rivers and onto the ground that sucks them up so quickly like obsessive and extreme feelings eaten by  
the oni.

Where am I? Who am I?

I don't know where I'm going!  
I look ahead and the road is so far that I don't see a destination. I don't see anything there. I turn around to face back where I'd come from.

Was my happiness always there?

He didn't smile at me too much, but I felt it when he hugged me. ONE time.  
When I cried, that was the only time he fully hugged me to tell me that I was right being the way I was. I was the best Sasuke out in the world. I am the only one and no one could take that away from me.

All he said was, "You should always stay the way you are."  
He patted my heart as if just brushing it because he was not one for sentiments, but that single touch warmed my whole body.

And I loved him.

Whether it was right to admire him because he could do all the things that I couldn't do.  
Whether it was wrong to love him more than being a brother to me.

At his worst or at his best, he always had that solemn look that he made him appear so serious, as if he was always thinking. He was always so sad even though he was silently strong, standing tall and arrogant in front of me.

I couldn't hate him even though he was the obstacle I couldn't get over when it came to finding myself and my own attributes. I couldn't do anything but love him because he could do and be everything. He was so adept and with everyone's eyes, even my own, I was nothing compared to him.

So, why am I here standing on a road that pulls me in either direction?

The trouble is that I want to go back there. Yes, to THAT time.

People know what you did, Aniki. But they didn't know _you_.  
They never did.

And never the way I did.

I didn't envision you to be anything less than what I had seen in my head or loved with all of my heart.  
You said you pretended, but I knew the two different eyes that stared at me.

They were both at odds. They were fighting inside of you. They were both watching for my reaction so carefully and so impatiently.

If I could only reach through and tell you now…

I know they're both of you.

Avenger.  
Yes, I'm an avenger, but not the way that they think.

I put up excuses to justify my reasons for wanting to be strong…Yes, I am pathetic.

But I have to get you back. I have to save you.

That's why you always looked at me…  
…I was the only one who understood the words you were too prideful to say.

That's why as I hold the tears back, my body fights with my best friend. He's as confused as I was back then. Except, now I understood what you did, and he doesn't at this point.

I have found the answer as to why you and I couldn't stay together, Aniki.

Why you didn't look at me in the eye sometimes…  
Why you tried to never touch me…  
Why you left me alive and…

Yet…  
You still looked at me straight in the eye.

We're doing the same thing, Naruto. Even though I push my hand through your lung, my heart is breaking while my mind becomes numb to the pain. You are doing the same thing that I am doing for him.

No one has to understand. Naruto, not even you. Maybe, you most of all.

Aniki, now I know why you didn't answer me that day. You wanted to protect me. _I_ was the source of your strength.

And now, the person before me, who knew "me" as well as I knew you, is trying to break me apart to bring me back home with him. And my blood boils because I want to kill him more for doing so.

Doesn't he know that I have no home to go back to?! There is NO home because you're not there!

As we battle with our souls, our bodies, and our minds, I see everything so clearly. I see why you said what you did and why exactly you did as you did.  
_  
_**You didn****'****t know what to do with me, didn****'****t you, Aniki?  
To keep me or to let me go led to your undoing.**

But like me, we can't live without the other. Yet, we can't ever live with the other.  
We don't move forward and we do not move backwards.

We always want to meet, but can't ever touch, Aniki. When will it never be "wrong"? When will it ever be the right time or circumstance?

Now, as I watch Naruto cringe with my fingers wanting to destroy him so thoroughly, I've just severed most of my heart and slaughtered it with my own hands.  
You have been my most precious friend…

…but no one can beat the person you first loved and  
adored.

Even if he walks a path paved with blood,  
if that's the way I have to go,  
I will always follow him.

If I can't save him by killing him,  
I want to be next to him,  
for always.

I want to kill him  
or have him kill me.

I know that this is the answer we both have come up with.

After all, without words,  
and all the times we stared at one another longingly and hungrily,  
we already condemned ourselves to one another for all of eternity.

**Owari. / The End.**

**Author****'****s note:** My off-the-wall reflective fic. Sasuke and his brother are truly alike.

**February 5, 2005, 2:38 AM**


End file.
